CHAPTER ONE
2001
Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.. Hebrews 4:16 NIV
I was alone again.
The buildings in downtown Phoenix towered over me. Cars and buses crowded the busy streets as the sun set in the distance. People passed by me, focusing straight ahead, no doubt eager to get home after a long day.
I looked towards each vehicle that came around the corner, hoping and praying for the familiar site of my fiancée/boyfriend/it’s complicated Jeff’s truck. As each minute went by the pit in my stomach grew larger as I realized he was probably a good thirty miles away and not coming back.
We had a fight the night before. My reaction was to stew over it awhile, his reaction was to abandon me in an unfamiliar place.
I was twenty-four years old, 1,000 miles from home, and didn’t have a cell phone. I had a pager which not only proved I still had one foot stuck in the 20th century but was useless in this situation.
Loneliness gripped me by the throat and with it came the familiar sting of rejection. I knew these two emotions well. I swallowed a lump in my throat. I put up with a lot from Jeff but I wasn’t doing it anymore. I wouldn’t take him back now even if he begged for forgiveness. Which he would do, because he always did. That was his pattern.
I thought about how life would change. I would be alone (something I had spent most of my life trying to avoid). My dreams of marriage and family might never materialize. But what was the point of holding on? Where had this four-year relationship gotten me? Standing here, trying to figure out how to get home, watching a pigeon eat a french fry on the sidewalk.
Is that what it had come down to? Was I to end up an old lady, sitting on a Phoenix park bench feeding pigeons and talking to them like they were my family?
“That’s the pigeon lady,” kids would whisper as they walked by. “They say her fiancée/boyfriend/it’s complicated left her here sixty years ago and she’s still waiting for him to pick her up.”
It’s not like I didn’t try. I had read everything from Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus to The Five Love Languages to understand why Jeff would go all “Jekyll and Hyde” on me. How does someone go from loving one moment to cold the next? What makes a person become abusive with the ease of a light switch? What was I doing wrong?
It’s not you. Something inside me said.
I turned and looked at the bank I had walked out of moments earlier. I had come for a job interview since I was moving here in a few weeks. This is where Jeff and I were supposed to spend our lives together. Now I didn’t know what to do.
The door opened. A man walked out. He held the door open as a woman pushed a baby stroller onto the sidewalk. My heart ached as I watched them walk off side by side.
That would never be me and Jeff. And even if that never became me and anyone else, being alone was safer than getting hurt. Because I didn’t know much, but I knew one thing. I was never letting him, or anyone else, hurt me again.
But before I could not get hurt again, I had to make my flight back to Texas tomorrow. And before I could make my flight back to Texas tomorrow I had to get back to Surprise tonight, so I didn’t have to sleep on a park bench with pigeons.
Maybe a church in the area would help me, but I had a complicated relationship with God. What was the point of praying if He was mad at me? I pictured Him, arms crossed, glaring down at me in anger. How could I blame him? I had messed up.
I grew up in a loving, Christian home. We went to church every Sunday and Wednesday and you didn’t miss unless you had a very good reason. I attended mostly Christian schools, went to a Christian college and graduated with a theology degree. The “rules” were practically tattooed across my forehead but I had still turned my back on them.
As I stood there, tears running down my cheeks as I tried to figure out what to do next, a gentle voice deep inside my spirit whispered:
I’m not mad. Come home, child. Come home.